Dear Kelly,

Each fall, I migrate to a warmer clime. In the spring, I fly back north to better nesting grounds. All of this is fine except for one thing: Without having a true “hometown,” I don’t have just one “home team” to root for. Many of my migratory bird friends – especially the geese – say I am a traitor. They root for the Canucks, and that’s it. But why can’t I celebrate Rockies baseball in the summer and Los Tigres soccer on the chillier winter days? Am I really the Benedict Arnold of Avocets?

Must I Choose?

Dear Must I Choose,

Do not take advice from a goose. How those hissing barely-past-dinosaurs became a national symbol for the overly-thankful Canadians is beyond me.

Instead, take advice from Walt Whitman, who, admittedly, is not a bird and can’t fully empathize with your situation, but he did have a bushy face, and that’s something. When waxing about how he’s of the earth and other 19th-century-hippie ideas in the interminable Leaves of Grass, he explores your exact issue (practically): “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Avocet friend, you have long legs but a chunky li’l body. You have a skinny skinny bill that goes up while you forage down. Your conservation status is “least concern” and yet, clearly, you are concerned. Buddy, you contain multitudes, and your sports fandom can fit right in with that.

Go Rockies, vamos Tigres, and hurrah you complicated American Avocet!

Kelly